Sippi Lovin'

Michelle and I discovered this pamphlet waiting for us in our mailbox last month. For a number of reasons, it got us to thinking about our good friends, Steve and Yarrow, who recently accepted new coaching positions in Decorah, Iowa. During our three-day visit to Decorah over the Christmas break, we discovered that the two of them had been under great religious scrutiny since arriving in their new town…it’s a small town thing I suppose. Well, we wanted to let them know that they were not alone. Proselytizing in South Mississippi is something like a regional pastime.

Michelle and I have tried to post a few times, but never produced anything worth reading. We considered creating fictitious posts, just to spice things up...and perhaps we'll do that, but before we do, let us try one more time to post with some regularity. We'll begin with the simple and mundane.

Michelle has been doing well and spends half of her work-week at Quizno's where she's a shift manager (Had you heard?) and the other half taking care of Dalton, the seven-month-old son of a classmate. She reports he's a lot of fun and I would have to concur. He's well behaved, adorable, and I rarely have to change diapers, which is nice. In her "free" time, she has been painting, reading (her reading list for 2006 is off to a good start), cooking, and sewing. We really don't get to see each other enough, but her schedule attests to the fact that this isn't entirely my fault. We typically run together in the mornings, hang out until I have class/she has to work, go our separate ways, and reconvene in the evening for a movie or arts & crafts hour. We went bowling once...that was fun. This reminds me of a conversation I once overheard between my parents about actually enjoying the process of doing dishes because it gave them time to catch up...now I understand.

Michelle and I brought several of our camping supplies back to Hattiesburg with us and while we haven't used them yet, we hope to do so within the next month or so. We have been told that there are nice state forests in South Mississippi and look forward to exploring. In other news, my parents will be visiting in two weeks and we are greatly anticipating their arrival. They will be our first guests from the north country. To be completely honest, we have only entertained at our apartment once since moving in last August and guests of any sort will be much appreciated. On the itinerary is a military museum on the Camp Shelby base roughly 20 miles from here that we plan on touring (everyone knows how keen I am on museums) and perhaps we'll make a day trip to the Gulf of Mexico to survey the scene.

All things considered, school has been treating me well. I am presently taking four classes: A Semester in Teaching Psychology, History of Modern Psychology, Adult Psychotherapy, and Objective Personality Assessment. I have particularly enjoyed Adult Psychotherapy and look forward to taking on *real* clients as soon as this summer. In addition to attending class, I am also teaching. I taught Abnormal Psychology the two semesters previous to this, but am teaching Adolescent Psychology this semester. It was a welcome change and while the students can be frustrating at times, I have enjoyed it thus far. Additionally, I successfully defended my master's thesis proposal two weeks ago and am hoping to begin data collection in a couple weeks. Just to be clear, this was just a thesis proposal and not the actual thesis defense. A hurdle cleared, nonetheless.

Life is good...busy, but good. Everyone and anyone is welcome to shoot either of us an e-mail should the mood strike. We both love reading them. Oh, and comments on the blog are welcome too! Take care and here's hoping you hear from us in a week or less.